


picket fences

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Infidelity, First Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:10:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things between Hikaru and Pavel are easy. Pavel isn't sure easy is what he wants anymore, not when he wants so badly to be seen as an adult. He can't figure out what he's missing when Hikaru is always there, filling in the gaps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	picket fences

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this with emotional infidelity but it's all one sided. There's no actual infidelity that occurs, just a lot of fantasizing and imagining. It should be clear in the story but I wanted to make sure I mentioned it here too!

Pavel loves Hikaru. He knew it would happen the first moment they met on the bridge. The excitement, the rush, and then the terror of fighting down Nero. It was Hikaru who first comforted him about his failure to save Spock’s mother. They cried together when it was over until they fell into a still quiet. The wavering smile on Hikaru’s face was the first thing on the Enterprise that made him think this could be home.

But lately he thinks that this isn’t enough. The way Hikaru makes him feel and laugh is good, even great, probably, but there’s more he wants. Sometimes Hikaru will tsk at him, what he likes to do on shore leave, and joke about his age.

He might be twenty years old, but he’s seen things that will make anyone grow up fast. That’s the thing about being a child prodigy: one has to stop being a child quickly. Everyone has thought of him as one his entire life and he’s been playing catch up since. Unless he’s the best in his class, he’s going to be dismissed as someone who isn’t quite good enough. It’s a lot of pressure to face, honestly, and working on the Enterprise helps assuage that. The Captain is young for his role, so Pavel doesn’t feel quite as out of place. Hikaru, too, is on the young side for alpha shift.

There are these moments when Hikaru looks at him, touches him, and Pavel finds himself thinking of someone else. Despite McCoy’s initial shock at his age, McCoy has never let it make a difference since then. That’s what he wants, and it’s hard to think about when Hikaru is on his knees, coaxing him to fall apart. Hikaru, wonderful Hikaru, who still occasionally treats him like a child even though they aren’t that different in age.

Pavel has made a career, a life, out of being smarter than everyone else, and so he knows the way that McCoy looks at him is calculating, assessing. Hikaru has never looked at him that way, he doesn’t think. Pavel has always been a sure thing for Hikaru, from that first moment on the bridge. What he and Hikaru have is love but it’s first love. Those rarely work out. Or maybe he just doesn’t want his first tries to always work out. That’s been his whole life and what he has with Hikaru is so _easy_. That frightens him sometimes, keeps him up, when he can see their lives plotted out, the two of them together. It's why he's never said anything to Hikaru about love.

But there’s McCoy and he never imagines a future there. He doesn’t want to think about that. He wonders if McCoy thinks about him at night, if McCoy chokes out a gasp as he comes into his own fist. At least McCoy probably has the privacy in his own room. Pavel sneaks in showers when Hikaru is on a different shift so his hips can stutter and he can let McCoy’s name fall from his lips. The water is never hot enough to calm him down. He always lets Hikaru fucks him on those nights after he’s guiltily spent time thinking about someone else making him fall apart. Pavel digs his nails into Hikaru’s back and pretends the dark hair he sees above him belongs to another man. It’s a compromise.

Hikaru deserves better; that’s a fact. Pavel is twenty years old and he’s not ready for the comfortable ease of being with him. There’s perfectly acceptable happiness in their future but it’s all given him this itch. Hikaru is always _there_ and it’s beginning to rankle him. He can’t imagine what keeps Hikaru coming back to him.

He’s lucky for getting away with these fantasies as long as he has. Hikaru has never questioned Pavel’s need to have it rough and fast on some nights, the nights when he barely keeps his eyes open to look at Hikaru. Usually it isn’t enough and Pavel finishes the night having orgasmed but still lacking. This night, though, Hikaru has it perfectly right. The thrusts are just hard enough to make him yelp and Hikaru even has one of his hands pinned down. He arches up against him, desperate. “Hikaru,” he says, “please...talk dirty to me.”

Hikaru pauses, disrupting the whole rhythm, and Pavel is so frustrated he could cry. “Are you sure, baby?” he asks, touching his face tenderly.

Pavel pushes back against Hikaru in an attempt to get him to move again. Hikaru groans and falls back into that same harsh rhythm. “You like this, don’t you, _Chekov_.” Pavel babbles back at him, nonsense words that he isn’t sure are Standard or Russian or some amalgamation.

Hikaru groans and Pavel opens his eyes long enough to see the signs that Hikaru is about to orgasm. Hikaru looks down at him long enough to smile before he reaches down to grab Pavel’s cock. Pavel’s eyes flutter open and he sees the dark hair above him, feels the sweat on their bodies and imagines he’s with someone else. All it takes beyond that hand is Hikaru sinking his teeth into Pavel’s collarbone and he’s coming hard, with Hikaru.

He’s floating in that post-orgasm haze for a few wonderful seconds before Hikaru is pushing him away. “What the _fuck_ , Pavel?”

Pavel can’t remember much, just the way Hikaru bit into his skin, and his dark hair. He opens his mouth to ask Hikaru what’s wrong but there’s real anger flashing in Hikaru’s eyes.

“Are you--are you fucking _McCoy_?” Hikaru yanks off the spent condom and tosses it in the trash. He’s already grabbing clothes before Pavel can make his mouth work. “Is that why you’re calling out his name when I’m fucking you?”

This looks bad. Really bad. “Karu, you know I wouldn’t cheat on you.” And that’s the truth. As much as Pavel might want to sleep with someone else, he won’t do it while they are still together. Hikaru is a safety net. His plan B while he tries to figure out plan A. He won’t operate without a backup.

Pavel can’t see it but he can almost hear Hikaru rolling his eyes. He scrambles up and tries to reach for Hikaru but Hikaru jerks away like Pavel will contaminate him. “I’m sorry! I’m not--I would never.” There’s not a right card to play here but he’s examining his metaphorical deck anyway. Fantasizing about someone else in bed isn’t great but it can be excused, maybe. Saying someone else’s name is a little more problematic.

The panic hits him steadily and he feels like he’s been pushed back. This isn’t--not like this. He grabs for Hikaru again, stumbling a little as he manages to get his arm. Hikaru’s eyes are red rimmed already. (“I’m an angry crier,” he told Pavel once. “After Spock...” Hikaru didn’t have to finish his sentence. They both knew what he was referring to and the way Hikaru always tensed when they left a planet.) His face is drawn and Pavel feels his stomach roiling from guilt. “Hikaru...” he says as he reaches up to wipe away tears. He’s so used to Hikaru being older and bigger and more substantial but Hikaru looks devastated.

“I’m not dumb, Pavel. I might not be as smart as you, but, I’ve noticed you pulling away.” Pavel swallows down a sob in his own throat. This whole time, Hikaru has been trying to hold onto him and Pavel didn’t even realize. The wet droplets on Hikaru’s cheeks are gone but Pavel keeps tracing his fingers across Hikaru’s face.

He moves his hand to cup Hikaru’s face and wonders how he got everything so wrong. This hurts more than he had ever imagined. Maybe he is stupid, after all. “No, Hikaru,” he says sadly. “I’m the stupid one.”

The skin under his hand burns him with guilt and he jerks back. There hasn’t been physical or emotional cheating--it’s all been a fantasy that he’s let build up inside himself. Hikaru has been _here_ the whole time.

The panic is in his chest. How many shifts will he sit through with Hikaru next to him and never speaking to him again? Maybe he’ll have to request a transfer. Hikaru deserves their friends. Pavel is the one who has always been the outlier, a variable to be dismissed. His own face is wet now and he hiccups, sitting down heavily on the bed.

There’s a shift on the bed and Pavel turns his head to see Hikaru holding out his arms. He folds into them immediately, aware of how fucked up this is but unwilling to let go quite yet. “You aren’t stupid, Pasha.” Hikaru’s warm and strong arms fold around him. One of them rubs soothingly at his back. He doesn’t dare to look up at Hikaru. “If you say you aren’t cheating, I believe you.”

Pavel wants to claw at Hikaru’s skin. Gorgeous, handsome, caring Hikaru who still holds him even after Pavel shocked and hurt him. “I didn’t,” he says feebly. When did he start taking Hikaru for granted? This embrace is what’s been missing. So many weeks and months of them drifting apart and Pavel didn’t try to stay afloat, convinced that he was better off.

Hikaru drops a kiss into his hair and that makes Pavel cry even harder. All these projections he’s created about Hikaru and all of them are wrong. He’s never given any credence to the story of people cut in half at birth and how everyone spends the rest of their life walking around and trying desperately to find them. That sort of thing has always seemed beneath him. He wasn’t even looking for someone when Hikaru happened. There’s a void opening in his chest, a hole he only knew about when Hikaru filled it.

“I thought,” he tries to say. “I thought...” His mouth hangs open as he tries to find the words for the feeling that threatens to tear him apart. “Don’t leave me.” An image of McCoy fucking him flashes into his mind and Pavel pushes it away. That fantasy doesn’t give him any relief now like it used to. “Do you love me?” He knows it’s an unfair question considering the situation and Pavel hasn’t been forthcoming about his own feelings at any point in their relationship but he has to _know_.

Hikaru sighs heavily and Pavel waits for the world to end. Hikaru will tell him no, that their whole relationship was a bet, that he’s just worried about STIs, that he’s not upset about the prospect of their relationship ending. The hand on his back is still and all Pavel wants is to throw on his clothes and leave. It doesn’t matter that they’re in his room. “I think I loved you the moment you saved my life.”

Pavel exhales harshly and sucks in another burst of air. He’s still pressed against Hikaru’s chest and he can hear the thumping of Hikaru’s heart. The skin reminds him of all the nights Hikaru has whispered those words into his neck when he thinks Pavel is asleep. It had terrified him every time because he felt the same.

He wriggles in Hikaru’s arms and pushes back so he can look at Hikaru. How many shore leaves had they taken where they were glued together? They’d spent weekends locked in hotel rooms, ordering room service, so that they didn’t have to share any of their time with anyone else. There were so many marketplaces and every time he found a plant for Hikaru and brought it back. Hikaru surprised him with books that are hundreds of years old and written in languages he doesn’t speak but somehow understood all the same.

There’s a softness in Hikaru’s eyes and Pavel’s breath hitches in his chest. “I’m sorry,” Pavel says. “I got restless. I thought if I didn’t need you then you’d never hurt me.” He kisses Hikaru and means it more than he ever has before. It’s _I love you I love you I’m so sorry_. He pulls away when Hikaru strokes his cheek gingerly. “I thought--you thought I was a child.” It’s all been building inside of him for months, resentment for faults he think Hikaru has committed. “I’ve loved you all this time. I didn’t know what to do.”

He feels like he’s seventeen again, running down the halls of the Enterprise to save the lives of men he’s just met.

Hikaru wipes tears from the corner of Pavel’s face and smiles, although it’s lined with sadness. “I know, Pasha.” He hesitates and Pavel can see it unfolding. Hikaru makes excuses and changes his shift and they turn into acquaintances who merely nod at each other. He shakes his head and Pavel’s stomach clenches and he wonders where the closest trash can is for when he vomits. “You have to talk to me about these things.” Hikaru brushes a sweaty curl from his head.

“You aren’t leaving?” His voice cracks midway through his sentence and he’s embarrassed. All the time he’s imagined this conversation and it always ended with Hikaru in tears and Pavel leaving confidently. That feels like a dream now, a timeline that was never real.

“We need to talk about what just happened, and what’s been happening, but I love you too much to let you go.” It’s Hikaru who kisses him then and Pavel finally feels like things might be okay. _He_ might be okay.

He’s twenty years old and knows better than to think he’ll die without Hikaru but it isn’t a hypothesis he’s willing to test. They can figure this out: they have to.


End file.
